Non-woven fabrics are well known in the art. Because of their relative low cost of manufacture and their ability to be designed for particular applications, non-woven fabrics are widely used in a number of consumer and industrial purposes. As an example, non-woven fabrics are frequently used to fabricate wipes for sanitary, industrial, and consumer applications that include collecting solid matter.
Present non-woven wipes suffer several disadvantages, however, particularly when used to wipe solid or semi-solid matter. As a wipe is often used to remove materials such as dirt, grease, or even fecal matter, the wipe desirably should have a surface that is efficient for collection of such matter. In addition, for sanitary reasons, the wipe should be relatively impenetrable and impervious to such matter. To a practical extent, these two desirable qualities are mutually exclusive. A loosely bound non-woven fabric with a surface having a three dimensional texture or apertures is generally efficient at collection of solid matter. Non-woven fabrics prepared by hydroentangling fibers may be particularly well suited to achieve these qualities. Hydroentangling is well known in the art, and is described, for instance, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,485,706 to Evans, herein incorporated by reference.
Fabrics with such qualities, however, also tend to promote porosity of the fabric to the solid matter. More tightly bound non-woven fabrics without apertures and which tend to have a smooth surface, on the other hand, are much more impervious to passage of solid matter. The fabric's smooth surface, however, is less efficient for wiping, particularly where the material to be collected is a semi-solid with a tendency to smear upon wiping, such as grease or fecal material.
Present non-woven wipes generally place a higher value on sanitary needs than on wiping efficiency. That is, present non-woven wipes generally sacrifice wiping efficiency to insure high resistance to penetration of the fabric. Thus present non-woven wipes generally comprise tightly bound, smooth-surfaced fabrics. While these fabrics are efficient at preventing matter from passing through, as previously noted, they are inefficient at collecting such matter. Often several individual wipes must be used to completely clean a surface. These problems are particularly acute for baby wipes designed for wiping fecal matter from a baby, where penetration through the wipe of the solid or semi-solid fecal matter is most disadvantageous.
The prior art does include many examples of composite fabrics that may comprise a loosely entangled non-woven layer and a more resilient scrim. These fabrics, however, are generally configured for adsorbency, and are not well suited for wiping to collect solids or semi solids. The scrim is generally provided only for reinforcement, and comprises a fairly stiff and heavy element not appropriate for a wipe.
There is therefor an unresolved need for an improved non-woven fabric.